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Garden of Five Senses robbed of sculpture

MISSING: The sculpture that has vanished from Delhi’s Garden of Five Senses.

NEW DELHI: In a sensational case of savagery of art brought to light by sculptor Ratnabali Kant, a life-size bronze sculpture has been stolen from its pedestal at the Garden of Five Senses maintained by Delhi Tourism at Said-Ul-Ajaib here in the Capital.

The sculpture, which was part of a series, “Senses through Seasons”, executed by Ratnabali Kant in 2002, was stolen by cutting off and mutilating the pedestal.

“About two weeks ago a student of art from Banaras Hindu University who had gone to visit the garden informed me that one of the sculptures created by me was missing. He said he could see only four sculptures in the garden instead of the five that had been sculpted by me to represent the five senses through the seasons. The missing sculpture represented autumn and it had been a striking and powerful sculpture. When the student asked the guard, he was told that the sculpture was stolen when the guard was on leave,” says Ms. Kant.

“As soon as I got the news, I rushed to the Garden of Five Senses to see for myself. It was disgusting to see the pedestal with two mutilated feet of the autumn sculpture and the clear signs of forcible cutting off and terrible mutilation. I also met the garden’s deputy manager who merely stated that one bronze sculpture had been stolen from the garden some eight/nine months ago and the management had received the insurance money after filing an FIR with the police,” she adds.

But, Ms. Kant adds, no further enquiry has been made by them.

“This is like a temple treasure being sawed off and stolen and the temple keeping quiet after getting some insurance money. And there is the dreadful mutilation and definite suspicion that this work of art has found its way to some collector and it was a lucrative business for some people,” she adds.

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